


testosterone imposter, drown yourself in the blue ocean, perpetuate your motion

by orphan_account



Series: The Ever Changing Constant Universe [5]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, F/F, GTA AU, Kidnapping, M/M, Misgendering, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 04:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6596227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ocean beckons toward him, taunting him, daring him to throw his body into its depths and lie deep beneath the surface, suffocated by crushing blue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	testosterone imposter, drown yourself in the blue ocean, perpetuate your motion

**Author's Note:**

> DakotaTrash... oops? i kinda ran with it, sorry

Jessica Risinger finds her constant when she is nine. She is on the beach, wind blowing in her long hair. It is beautiful, the sun is setting, turning the water a glowing orange. She is drawn to the water, mesmerized, and she ignores the shouts from her parents. She runs down to the water, leaving footsteps in the wet sand. She kneels in the water and it laps against the hem of her shirt. It is cool and there is something in her chest that wasn’t there before. The sun lights the water red and it trails through her fingers, thick and viscous like blood.

It follows her as she grows older and older. It is the shower, hot and heavy, that turns her skin bright red. She doesn’t feel right, but she can’t name it. The name is in her heart, she knows, but it’s not on her tongue.

It is the rain, thundering from the sky. She watches it from her window, relating strangely to the grey sky, she loves it so much more than the blue. It has so much more depth and texture and it is a harbinger of her constant. She cups her hands and reaches out. She drinks her sky fallen constant and lets it seep into every corner of her body. She is twelve.

She is thirteen when the words finally make the way from her heart to her head. She is crying as she looks at the screen in front of her, words staring back, the perfect words. She says them out loud as her constant drips down her face.

“I’m transgender.” And it is if a weight lifts from his shoulder and he sobs, happily.

He changes himself, no more dresses, more masculine clothes. He doesn’t want to cut his hair, he spent so much time growing it out and he is so immensely proud of it. But it is feminine, or at least looks like it, and he keeps getting mistaken for a girl, despite the bound chest and buttoned shirts. He hates it, he hates it, so with dull, dull scissors, he hacks off his hair and it falls around him. He takes a shuddering breath and looks at himself in the mirror.

“My name is Jon.” His reflection stares back at him, gaunt face and shadowed eyes staring back. And then he panics, because this is him, giving up her, the little girl that used to cage him. She is gone now and she is no more and Jon slides down the wall of the bathroom because, because, because. She had a soulmate, the soulmate was given to her, they were hers and hers alone. And now she’s gone, as good as dead, so what if his soul mate thinks that he’s dead? There’s no way for them to know about this, about Jon, there’s no way. They probably think that he’s dead, this isn’t fair, no, no, no, he just wanted to love someone. No, no, no, no. He doesn’t realize that he isn’t breathing until spots dance in front of his eyes, and then he’s breathing too quickly, and fat tears drip down his cheeks.

He is in the shower when it happens, hot water all around him and then there is a pain in his chest. He gasps for air, he can’t breathe, and the pain is excruciating. Short, blunt nails scrabble at his chest, trying desperately to claw out his heart. His breath catches in his throat and he is gasping, curled in the bottom of the shower. He can not breathe, can’t breathe, can’t force air into his useless lungs. And then it’s over, save the dull throb of his heart and the sting of the raw flesh over it. There is something missing, a gap in his person, something completely, completely gone. He realizes at that moment that his soulmate is dead and he puts two and two together. The presence of his constant and the lack of breath. His soulmate drowned and that’s tragic, tragic, and he can hear his heart begin to break down, water seeping into the cracks. And then, at that moment, he knows that it was his fault. They thought that he was dead, that they had no one to find anymore, he killed them. He drove them to their death, suffocated by the thing that they loved. The water has grown cold and it scares him now, how easily it could kill him, just like it killed them, and he can no longer stand the feel of it on his skin.

Testosterone comes easily to him, pushed into his veins. He laughs, he looks like a heroin addict, track marks adorning his arms like jewelry.

He finds that he is uncomfortable, hair too short, but he can’t look like a girl, he can’t, he can’t, it would kill him. He steels himself as his constant floods over the precise cuts on his arms.

The first time he kills, it’s an accident. He is standing there in that alley and a man comes up, offering him a cigarette as he leans against the bricks next to Jon. Jon shakes his head.

“No, thank you.” He’s looking at the star, as visible as they are in the city, and he envies the person that they belong to, they are beautiful. The man puts an arm around him, breath hot on the shell of his ear.

“What’s a cute girl like you doing out here?” And Jon freezes, hair on his neck rising. This man shouldn’t know, how does he know, how, how, how? “Granted, you seem a little confused. Why don’t I take you back to my hotel room and show you what it’s like to be a woman?” Jon’s mind is numb as the man leads him by the hand, his wedding ring catching the light.

The man’s hotel room is nice, even though it only appears he’s going to be here for tonight. The man’s singers tap his hips and start to travel up his shirt. Just like that, his mind unfreezes and he grabs the closest thing to him, a fancy, green glass, bottle of water. What place even has that? But he doesn’t think too much of it and he brings the bottle down over the man’s head. It shatters, embedding shards in his skull and the man topples. Jon can not breathe and the man doesn’t move, he’s dead, he’s dead.

Jon flees, running to his apartment and stuffing anything he can into a bag. The bus runs late and he takes it as far as he can, until he’s in the mid-West.

He is so far from his constant and he kills more and more. He keeps a tally in a notebook, inscribed in blue ink, the first one for Jessica and the second one for his soul mate. And then one night, his skin itches and he feels like a poor man’s attempt to create a human doll, that’s all he is, an experiment. A bad one, at that. He adds one more tally to his notebook, his last one, he promises himself. 

When he wakes up the next morning, sticky with his own blood, he scratches out the most recently made tally. He does this often, and even he can realize that it’s not healthy.

The pull of the ocean is something that he can not ignore, so he goes back to California, notebook clutched in his hands as he stands at the edge of his constant. There is crime around him in this city and he chameleon codes himself into the city.

His notebook grows more full and more full, and he buys far too many blue pens. This new one in his hand is called Water, but he keeps it anyway. 

Water is the best pen that he has ever had and he makes one hundred more tallies over the course of three weeks. Not even his personal best, but it seems to mean something that even he can not figure out.

He is running and his shoes are soaked. It rained earlier and now he is stepping in every puddle. It’s not his fault, it’s dark, he can’t avoid them, and he is being chased. All he can think of is that alley and the offered cigarettes and the green glass catching the dim light and he can not breathe. It catches up to him, his panic, and he collapses, falls to his knees on the rough tarmac. The footsteps stop beside him.

“Tide Rising?” The voice is not what he expected, but he isn’t sure what he was expecting. And shit, someone recognized him and followed him, and it might help that he has his mask on, but then it might not. It could just be solidifying his identity. “Are you okay?”

“Kill me if you’re going to.” The hoarseness of his voice surprises him, but he can not remember the last time that he spoke. The owner of the voice laughs.

“Not a chance, man. The name’s Lindsay.” He looks up, seeing the woman above him, red hair falling around her shoulders. “And boy, do I have an offer for you.”

The offer, it turns out, is not a contract killing, or even a heist offer. It’s a crew position and for some reason, he accepts. He turns up to the crew’s apartment with his notebook and a packed bag.

“Hi, Tide!” Lindsay says as she opens the door. He hates himself for choosing this name now, something so close to his heart, and also, isn’t Tide a type of laundry detergent? “Come on in, I’ve got some people for you to meet.” She leads him a few steps into the apartment and gestures to the motley assortment of people laid over chairs. “This is Meg, our stealth person.” The girl with purple hair waves at him. “Jeremy, our muscle slash medic, Trevor, our sniper.” She points at the pair, respectively. “Miles, our face man, and Kerry, our small, tech hamster.” Kerry makes an offended noise, but Meg laughs. “And I’m Lindsay, all around bad-ass and hot shot shot caller. What’s your forte?” Jon looks at her.

“Shouldn’t you have looked at that before you hired me?” Lindsay shrugs.

“We did, but it’s good to hear what a person thinks that their strengths are.” Jon blinks because that really does make sense.

“I’m a good negotiator. I can sneak. I kill.” Miles looks at him from the sofa.

“Are you legit, though?” Jon tosses him the notebook tucked under his arm. Miles catches it with one hand and flips through it before looking at Jon. “Shit. I guess you are.” Jon nods and takes a few steps forward to take his notebook back.

“Do you have a name or is it actually Tide?” Kerry asks and Jon looks down at him. 

“What do you think?” He starts to walk away and he can hear Kerry behind him.

“Okay, but I genuinely don’t know!”

They pull a heist and it’s good, it goes well, and they’re all a bit richer than they were before. Jon adds seven marks to his notebook and finds his way to the roof. Trevor is sitting up there, smoke curling lazily around his head.

“You did well.” He congratulates and Jon nods.

“Thank you.” Trevor offers him a cigarette and Jon shakes his head. His binder is tight on his chest. “So did you. You saved my life.”

“A few more seconds and you would’ve stabbed him.” Jon shrugs.

“Maybe.” This is the longest conversation that he’s had with the crew and none of them have even seen his face. It’s personal and stupid and he’s sure that he still looks feminine.

But they become closer and Jon even wins one of their bi-weekly Mario Kart championships.

“That is so not fair.” Trevor says, leaning into Jeremy’s side. Jon shrugs.

“It is what it is, man.” Trevor shakes his head.

“I thought we were the Two T Threat.” Jeremy stifles a laugh, but none of the rest of them even bother, and their laughter rings through Jon’s ears.

“My name’s Jon.” And there is silence for a moment before Jeremy crows.

“We can be the J Juniors!” Trevor rolls his eyes.

“That’s stupid.”

“Oh, and Two T Threat isn’t?” Meg asks, tossing a piece of popcorn at Trevor, who catches it deftly.

It is two heists later when he finally shows them his face. He wakes up to the smell of pancakes. It must be Jeremy’s turn to cook, because damn, that kid can. He rolls out of bed and pads into the kitchen in his sock feet. He doesn’t realize that he forgot to put his mask on until he’s in the kitchen, but he’s not panicking, in fact, he seems fine. He pours himself a glass of orange juice on the counter.

“Hey.” The six turn all at once to look at him and he sips his juice in silence. Meg is the first one to talk.

“Jon! You’re so pretty!” He stiffens and tells himself that it’s fine, she doesn’t know, she’ll never know. She hugs him and Lindsay shoots him a thumbs up as she steals a scalding hot pancake from Jeremy’s griddle. Trevor is smiling at him and approaches him next.

“I’m glad you trust us.” And Jon agrees, it feels so nice to trust someone.

There’s a heist that doesn’t go as well as it could, mainly due to the false info their informant fed them.

“I bet it’s Ramsey’s fault.” Lindsay hisses, pacing the apartment as Jeremy stitches up the bullet wound in Miles’ leg. Jon knows that it’s not Ramsey’s fault, it’s his fault. He was right next to Miles when he got shot, he could have stopped it, he should have, why didn’t he?

He adds a mark to his notebook that evening and lets himself bleed. He scratches out the mark the next morning. 

A few nights later and he’s gotten himself drunk way too late in the night. He is sprawled across the kitchen table while Kerry clacks away on his laptop.

“D’you think I’ll die, Kerry?” There is a pause in Kerry’s typing.

“Yes…? We’re all going to die someday.” Jon nods, vision blurring.

“What if I died tonight? Can I die tonight, Kerry?” There is a longer pause.

“No, Jon. You can’t die tonight.”

Lindsay approaches him on the balcony the next morning as he’s nursing a glass of water.

“Kerry told me what you said last night. About you wanting to die.” Jon presses his forehead with his palm.

“It’s fine. I’ve got it under control. It doesn’t interfere with my work and I won’t let it.” Lindsay sighs next to him.

“I’m not concerned about your work, Jon. I’m concerned about you.”

He takes Lindsay’s words to heart somehow, and he cuts back. 

Miles approaches him one day, in a purposefully lax demeanour. Jon is instantly on edge.

“Jon, are you on drugs?” Jon blinks and looks down to his partially uncovered arms and the small, starburst scars dotted on them. “It’s okay if you are, it’s fine. We just want to help you. We care about you.”

“I’m not on fucking drugs!” Jon shouts because it’s been too much and everything’s been building up. “I wouldn’t do anything that I thought would negatively affect this team! You know why? Because I care about you, too!” He throws the glass in his hands against the counter and it shatter, glass splintering and flying everywhere. His chest is caving in and he’s back in that dimly lit hotel room. He can hear Miles talking to him somewhere, but he can’t understand. He panics more when there are suddenly hands on his hips, lifting him off the floor he didn’t know he was on. He writhes and lashes off, not stopping until he is put down and the hands are removed. The man is there somewhere, Jon didn’t actually kill him, he didn’t and now he’s back. Eventually, his vision clears and he is sitting on the kitchen counter. Miles is staring at him, not with disgust that Jon thought he would be, but with concern.

“I’m not on drugs.” Jon whispers, voice quiet. Miles nods.

“I believe you, man. You fell pretty heavily on some of that glass, Jeremy’s gonna get it out of your hands, yeah?” Jon lets Jeremy picks out the red tinged shards from his palms and then he goes to his room and sleeps, hoping that the fog would be gone when he woke up. It was.

He should have known that crew life wasn’t going to be easy. Especially when you’re a top-tier crew. And, yeah, there had been complications before, but none as big as this. Apparently, other gangs seemed to think of Jon as the weak link since he was the newest to the crew, and this made him a target.

He comes to tyed to a chair, hands zip tied behind his back, a piece of duct tape over his mouth. He glares up at his captor.

“Little, little birdy.” The man coos. “Look at you, all done up in your cage.” Jon hisses behind the duct tape as the man lazily spins a blade between his fingers. Jon’s head hurts, they must have drugged him, he realizes. And then the man uses the blade, slicing Jon’s shirt downward. The man looks at his binder oddly. “Do you wear a bulletproof vest under your clothes? And I thought I was paranoid.” The man reaches out to touch the thick material and Jon breaks. He can hear the snap as his wrist breaks and he yanks them roughly from the zip ties. The man stumbles backward, bewildered. His wrist will hurt later, Jon knows, but right now he can’t feel anything. The man lunges at him and Jon reaches him blow for blow, using only his non-injured hand. The man manages to cuff his head and his vision begins to swim again. Jon stumbles and the man reaches out, tearing Jon’s binder down. He can hear gunshots somewhere and he realizes that the others must have found him. He twists the knife from the man’s hands, probably breaking a few of his fingers, and he drives it deep into the man’s chest. The man splutters and falls, coughing up blood onto Jon’s now bare chest. His wrist throbs and he sinks to his knees, there is blood running from his lips and it drips onto the floor, too loudly in the ringing silence. Someone enters the room, he can barely hear the creak of the door, and then there is much too much shouting and the floor looks so comfortable, he’s just gonna lay down for a bit, just a little bit.

He comes to like a wave, slowly, rolling in a push of darkness. And when he blinks open his bleary eyes, he immediately wants to shut them again. The team is around him, sprawled across chairs in varying levels of comfort. The second thing he registers is the searing, searing pain and an unbidden groan falls from his mouth. Five heads turn to look at him and there are five bright, bright smiles.

“Oh, thank fuck.” Lindsay says. “I totally thought you were going to die.”

“Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but thanks…?” He croaks out, voice rough and scratching his throat.

“I’ll get you some water.” Kerry says, moving towards the door. “And tell Miles that you’re up.” Jon notices the absence of Miles, blinking quickly.

“Jon.” Jeremy says and Jon looks at him, tilting his head. Jeremy looks so tired, deep circles under his eyes, but he’s smiling, smiling so widely. “Jon, you’re fucking terrifying. You broke your own wrist and then killed a man. How the fuck?” Kerry steps back in and hands Jon a glass of water, which he sips out gratefully.

“I just… Broke?” Jon shrugs, holding the cup awkwardly. “Are you guys okay?” Meg nods quickly.

“We’re all good, no injuries on our end.” Meg says. “You’re the onl-”

“Okay, wait up.” Trevor says, unfolding himself from his chair. “Jon, I don’t think you realize this, and that’s okay, you’re kind of out of it, but you should know this. That guy broke your binder.” Jon takes a second to process the words and then groans.

“Fuck me. You weren’t supposed to know.” He lets his head hit the pillow with a soft thump.

“Jon, it’s fine! We don’t care about that.” Lindsay says, trying desperately to make Jon understand. Jon just nods.

“Yeah, yeah, I know… I just, I like going on my own time. With things like this.” Trevor nods.

“I get that, man. Get some sleep, yeah? We’ll be back.” Jon is asleep before they’re all out of the room.

He doesn’t see Miles until he’s allowed to move outside of the room, and then it’s pretty hard for Miles to avoid him. Jon’s chest is thankfully covered more adequately, flattened nicely by his new binder. 

And when he does see Miles, he walks into the kitchen, looking for a bottle of water. Miles is eating a sandwich. Jon nods at him and smiles. When he closes the door to the fridge and opens his mouth to speak, Miles is gone.

Jon confronts Kerry that afternoon.

“Do you know why Miles isn’t talking to me?” Jon asks. “Did I do something wrong?” Kerry shakes his head.

“No! No, not at all. Miles is… He’s kind of messed up about secrets. Like, he’s a great guy and I love him, but he’s had some shit happen to him, and that’s fucked him up a bit. He’ll get over it, I promise. He just thinks that you don’t trust us.” Jon looks down a his hands, the stark white cast and his pale flesh. He will not cry, he will not, he will not.

Things kind of calm down and the whole crew takes a break from heists. Jon protests at first.

“No, no, Lindsay. You don’t need me on any heists, I’m just extra. You don’t have to just stay around here with me all day.” Lindsay flicks his forehead lightly.

“You are a valuable member of our team and we are all now on vacation.” Meg cheers from another room and the matter is settled.

They’re drinking and getting drunk and they’re asking each other questions. The only condition is that they have to answer truthfully. None of them would agree to this if they were sober.

“Who’s the first person you killed?” Kerry asks, drinking his beer.

“Guy in the streets.” Lindsay says. “Trying to kidnap some poor girl.”

“I got mugged and freaked.” Meg says, throwing her legs across Lindsay’s lap.

“My father.” Trevor says. They all turn to look at him and he shrugs. “He literally tried to kill me.”

“A guy in the alley.” Jeremy says, looking down into his beer like it held all the answers in the universe. “He was trying to kill someone else.”

“My soul mate.” Jon says and they exchange confused glances all around the circle. “I think, I… When I changed my name, apparently the whole soulmate thing doesn’t accept name changes, so my soulmate thought I was dead. I’m, uh, I’m pretty sure that I drove them to suicide.”

“Fuck.” Jeremy says under his breath. “Fuck, man.” There are a few moments of silence.

“Guy tried to rob a place.” Miles says and heads turn to look at him, it’s his turn to ask a question. He looks at Jon, eyes dark. “Prove you trust us. What’s your real name?” Jon is frozen for a moment and he wants to respond, he does, he does, but instead he walks over to Miles and leans down in his face.

“Fuck off.” Jon spits, glaring down at Miles. “That’s not something you ask people. That’s not- it’s not-” Miles sneers up at him and he is so drunk. Jon grabs the front of his shirt.

“You don’t trust us, then?” The others seem to be frozen in time and blood is roaring in his ears.

“It has nothing to do with trust, Miles, it has to do with who I am.” Trevor breaks the time barrier and he stands, the most sober out of all of them.

“Guys, guys, calm down.” Miles glares at him.

“She-” He jabs a finger at Jon “-is not a guy!” Jon punches Miles in the face and drops him to the sofa. He steps out of the room, wiping his now bruised hand on his jeans.

He begins to pack his things in his room, shoving them into that old bag in the corner of his room. He hurriedly makes a new mark in the notebook and he buries that among his clothes. He turns and Jeremy is in his doorway.

“Stay, Jon.” Jon shakes his head and Jeremy takes a step towards him. “You’re hurt, Jon. Stay.” Jeremy puts a hand on Jon’s shoulder. “Please, Jon.” He erases that newest tally and falls asleep.

Miles is in the kitchen the next morning, nursing a cup of water. He looks up as Jon walks in.

“Hey.” He says, voice hoarse. Jon ignores him. “I’m sorry about last night.” Jon looks at him.

“That is not something you do to someone. Ever. And especially not if you’re their friend.” Miles looks down, chastised.

“I’m sorry, Jon.” Jon takes a sip of his water.

“I don’t forgive you. And I don’t trust you. You’re going to have to work really hard to make this up.”

“I’ll do anything.” Miles promises and Jon walks away.

He heals, eventually, even though his wrist still hurts from time to time and there are still scars in his mind.

Miles does try to make it up, he gives Jon presents and apologizes a million times and tries desperately. Jon crumbles and he forgives Miles eventually, with a stern warning with a very gruesome murder promised for him if he ever does it again.

Lindsay whirls into the apartment a few days later, slamming the door behind her.

“Boys and girl.” She says, grinning. “We’ve got a heist!” They all cheer and Jon grins because this is his family, his really oddly perfect family.

It is raining outside and Jon walks into it. The watercolour gray sky hangs over him and his constant runs over his face.

“Jon!” Jeremy calls from the porch. “Come on in, man. You’re going to get struck by lightning.” Jon grins and laughs. He fishes the Water pen from his pocket and he throws it as far away as he can. He doesn’t need it anymore, doesn’t need the notebook to atone for his sins. And he will never need to erase another mark again. The rain pelts down harder and he darts back inside, soaking wet and laughing. 

**Author's Note:**

> that is that, another constant story  
> also, is this the first trans!Jon story on here? I think it is, but if there are others, let me know  
> any people you want to see? comment!  
> criticism? comment!  
> you want to confess your undying love for me? comment!


End file.
